Bank-protection system



W. F. CERVENKA. BANK PROTECTION SYSTEM.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE 21, I921. Q 7 I 1,4I2,520. Patented Tune 20,1922.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

' LI /ff? fleiwar/ia INVENTOR w. F. CERVENKA. BANK PROTECTION SYSTEM.APPLICATION FILED JUNE 27, I921.

Patented June 20, 1922.

3 SHEETSSHEET 2.

W, if flew/6mm.

INVENTOR WITNESSES:

ATTORNEY W. F. CERVENKA. BANK PROTECTION SYSIEM. 1,420,520.

APPIICATION FILED JUNE 27, 1921.

Patented June 2%, 1922. I a SHETSSHEET s.

Z6 L V J W1 7 C'aruazr/f a. %7%4 INVENTOR WITNESSE5:

stares WV'JIL'LIAM 1E. CERVENKA, 0F TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN.

BANK-PROTECTION SYSTEM.

Application filed June 2'7,

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that ii, WILLIAM F. CnRvnNKA, a citizen of the UnitedStates, residing at Traverse City, in the county of Grand Traverse andState of Michigan, have invented new and useful Improvements inBank-Protection Systems, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to an arrangement of parts for protecting banks,post oifices and the like, from hold-ups by robbers, the general objectof the invention being to provide hidden guns which are trained upon apoint occupied by a person standing in front of the tellers window andwhich are actuated by electrical means, thecircuit of which can beclosed by touching movable parts on the ceiling and floor of the tellerscage and a push button located at any desired point. Thns when a burglarappears at the window and commands the teller to throw up his hands theteller can close the Contact in the ceiling in the act of carrying outthe commands of the robber and thus fire the guns, or the teller candrop to the floor and actuate the contact in the floor to fire the guns.Or the push button may be arranged so that a person outside the cage mayfire theguns thereby.

Ano her object of: the invention is to place a steel'shield in front-ofeach gun with a hole in each shield through which the bullets pam whenthe gun is fired, with means for normally holding the gun out ofalignment with the hole so that if the gun should be lired by accidentthe bullet will strike the shield and do no harm.

A further object of the invention is to provide means actuated by theclosing of the circuit for bringing ment withthe hole, this movement ofthe parts closing the circuit to the trigger actuating mechanism forfiring the gun as soon as its muzzle is brought opposite the hole.

Another object of the invention is to provide means for adjusting theposition of the gun holding means and the shield so that the gun can beproperly aimed no matter in what position it is placed.

This invention also consists in certain other features of constructionand in the combination and arrangement of the several parts, to behereinafter fully described,

illustrated in the accompanying drawings the gun into align-Specification of Letters Patent. Patgm'tefl J 1111mm 233 11922.,

3.921. Serial H0. l tlfi i.

and specifically pointed out in the appended claims.

in describing my invention in detail, reference will be had to theaccompanying drawings wherein like like or corresponding partsthroughout the several views, and in which Figure .1 is a transversesectional view through a tellers cage showing my invention in use.

Figure 2 is a fragmentary horizontal section through Figure 1.; 1

Figure 3 is an enlarged sectional view showing the gun actuating meansin the enclosing casing for the same.

Figure 4i is a similar view showing the parts in firing position in"full lines and in the inclined position by dotted lines.

Figure 5 isv a fragmentary view, partly broken away, of a part on, thetop of the cage.

Figure 6 is a diagrammatic View of the circuits.

Figure 7 is a fragmentary view showing a shoe provided with a pointedmember for actuating the iioor contact.

In these views 1 indicates the side walls of a telleifs cage, 2 theentrance door thereof, 3 the. window vin the front 1 of the cage and ithe shelf or counter adjacent the window.

in carrying out my invention I form the top or ceiling of the cage of apair of spaced grid plates 5 which are secured to the upper ends ofangle corner plates 8, these corner the uprights 7 of the ceilingadjustable by o'lholes 8 in the upplates being bolted to cage and 1 makethe providing a plurality rights to receive the belts in plates 6 sothat by placing these bolts'in different sets oi the openings the twogrid plates may be raised or lowered in order to place the ceilingwithin easy reach or he person occupying the cage. A contact plate 19 isplaced between the twogrid plates and th'e'lower face of this plate 9 iscovered with a sheet 10 of insulating material, the edges of which arefolded over the edges of the plate, as shown at 11. llhis plate 9 isslightly flexible so that when it is pushed upwardly by the fingers orthe like being passed through "the openings in the lower grid plate itwill contact with the upper grid plate so as to close the electriccircuit as hereinafter described. The door of theca'ge is formed ofcharacters denote i a grid plate 12 which is spaced from the main floorby the posts 13. A contact plate 14 having its lower face covered with asheet 15 of insulating material rests upon the main floor and ac'ontactplate' 16' is suspended from the grid plate 12 by the springs17, said springs holding the plate 16 out of engagement with the plate14. By passing the fingers or a' pointed member through the openings inthe grid plate 12 the contact plate 16 can be pressed against the plate14 to close an electric circuit as hereinafter described.

The guns are placed in cases 18 which are made to resemble letter casesor the like so that a person will not suspect that they contain guns.These cases may be arranged in any desired manner within the cage sothat the guns therein will cover the point or points a burglar is likelyto occupy in holding up the bank. The drawings show two cases arrangedon the counter, one at each side of the window, and a third case locatedonthe floor with the gun held ininclined position so that all threeguns, when brought into shooting position, as hereinafter described,will aim at a person standing in front of the room. The guns on thecounter may shoot through the glass walls of the front of the case andthe gun on thefloor may shoot through an opening 1* made in the front1', below the Window, and which is covered by a thin strip 1" which ispreferably made of, the same material from which the lower part of thefront 1 is made. I

Each case is placed over a base 19 and a base plate 20 is screwed tothis base. An auxiliary base plate 21 is pivotally secured at its rearend to the plate 20, as shown at 22, so that plate 21 can be tilted onplate 20. This plate-21 is held in tilted position by the screws 23which pass through screw threaded holes in said plate andengage plate20,

as shown in dotted lines in Figure 4. This arrangement of parts permitsa case to be arranged on the floor with the in shooting position, aimingat the body of a person standing in front of a window, as shown inFigures 1 and 2.. A supporting bracket 24 is secured to plate 21 andthis.

bracket supports the magnets 25, the armature 26 of which is slidablymounted on the pins 27 carried by the magnets. A rod 28 is connectedwith the central part of the armature and said rod, passes through anopening in the bracket 24 and it receives a spring 29 which has one endbearing against the bracket 24 and its other end against a collar 30 onthe rod so that said spring tends to hold the armature away from themagnets.

The gun A is carried by a member 31 which is pivotally connected withplate 21, as at 32 and a curved arm 33 hasone end gun, when 1 ,aa eaopivotally secured to said-member, as at 34, and the other end of saidarm is provided with a screw threaded socket to receive the screwthreaded end of rod 28. Thus the member 31 is held in tilted position,as shown in Figure 3, by the action of the spring 29*, on the rod 28.The degree of movement of the member 31 and the armature may be adjustedby means of the nut 34 on rod.28 which is located between the arm 33andbracket 24. Member 31 is provided with'the blocks or projections 35for engaging the hand \grip of the gun and a block 35 for engaging thatpart of the gun immediately in front of the trigger guard. The gun isheld in position by means of a bar 36 which'is pivoted at one end to therear block 35 and detachably connected with the front block 35 by thethumb .bolt 37. By removing this bolt 37 the bar 36 can be swungdownwardly to permit the gun to ,be removed from the supporting blocks.A trigger actuating arm 38 is pivoted to the front block 35'and has itsupper end formed to engage the trigger of thegun and sup ports anarmature 39 on its lower end. The magnets 40 for this armature aresupported at the front end of plate 21 and are so arranged that when themember 31 has been moved downwardly by the magnets 25 the armature 39will be in a position to be acted upon by the magnets so that the armwill be rocked upon its pivot to cause its upper .end to depress thetrigger and fire the gun.

The magnets 40 are energized as soon as the member 31 finishes itsdownward movement by a contact 41 on member 31 engaging the contacts 42on block 43 which is connected with plate 21.

A shield 44 of armor plate is connected with the front end of plate'21and this shield has a hole 45 therein with which the muzzle of the gunwill register when member 31 is in its lowered position sollthat thebullet from the gun will pass through this hole when the gun is fired.

This shield will protect persons in the bank from the bullet of the gunif the gun should he accidentally fired as the gun isnormally pointed atthe solid part of theshield.

As shown in'Figure 6 a battery Bis connected by suitable conductors withthe magnets 25 and 40 and with the contact plates in the floor andceiling of the cage and with a push button C which may be located at anydesired point in such a manner that if either of the floor or ceilingcontacts are closed or the push button depressed the circuit to magnets25 will be completed so as to cause said magnets to actuate the armature26 to swing the member 31 downwardly to place the gun in firing positionand this movement of member 31 will close the circuit to magnets 40 topress the trigger and thus fire the! gun. K may place a switch D in thecircuits, which when open, will break the circuit and thus prevent theguns from being fired.

From the above it will be seen that it is simply necessary for theteller within the cage to reach up to close the ceiling contact in orderto fire. the three guns or to reach down and close the floor contact tofire the gun. He may also fire the guns by pushing the push button C. Imay also provide a projection 46 for engaging the toe of one shoe andwhich is adapted to be strapped upon the shoe so that the teller canoperate the floor circuit closer with his foot when necessary. Thisprojection is shown in Figure 7.

Attention is called to the fact that the teller may be at any point inthe cage and yet be able to operate either the floor or ceiling circuitcloser as these extend over the entire floor and closer can be actuatedwhen the teller is commanded to raise his arms by the robber as he canpress upon the contact plate in the act of raising his arms. If he has achance to throw himself upon the floor to get out of range of therobbers gun he can actuate the door closer by his fingers or he canoperate this closer while standing in front of the window facingthe'robber with his foot when he has the projection 46 thereon. Byholding the circuit closed a stream of bullets will be shot from the gunas each recoil of a gun will force the armature 39 away from the magnets40 and said magnets will immediately attract the armature again to pullthe trigger for the next shot.

It is thought from the foregoing description that the advantages andnovel features of my invention will be readily apparent.

I desire it to be understood that I may make changes in the constructionand in the combination and arrangement of the several parts, providedthat such changes fall with in the scope of the appended claims.

What I claim is 1. In combination with aroom having a window therein, agun in the room, concealing and supporting means for the gun, magneticmeans for firing the gun and means in the floor and ceiling of the roomfor closing the circuit to the magnetic means.

2. In combination with a room having a window therein, gun supportingmeans adjacent the window, magnetic means for firing the gun, a circuitcloser for said magnetic means extending over the entire width of theceiling of the room and a second circuit closer extending over theentire width of the floor of the room and grid plates covering saidcircuit closers.

, 3. In combination with a room having a window therein, gun supportingmeans adjacent the window, magnetic means for firceiling The ceiling.

.the gun,

ing the gun, a circuit closer for said magnetic means extending over theentire width of the ceiling of the room and a second circuit closerextending over the entire width of the floor of the room, grid platescovering said circuitclosers and a third circuit closer in the form of apush button.

4. In combination with a cage and its window, gun supportingmeansarrangedin the cage, a gun supported by such means, magnetic meansfor firing the gun and circuit closers for the magnetic means in theceiling and floor of the cage, each circuit closer consisting of amovable contact plate and a, stationary contact plate and grid platescovering the same and through which the fingers or a projection areadapted to be passed to move-the movable plate against the stationaryplate.

5. A device of the class described comprising a base plate, a gunsupporting member hinged thereto, a gun supported in said member, springmeans for holding the supporting member in raised position, magneticmeans for lowering. the supporting member to place the gun in firingposition,.circuit closing means for said magnetic means, magnetic meansfor firing the gun and means for losing the circuit. thereof when thesupporting member reaches the end of its downward movement. v

8. A device of the class described comprising a base, a base platehinged thereto, means for adjusting the base plate in relation to thebase, a gun holding member pivotally connected with the base plate,spring means forholding the same in tilted. position on the base plate,magnetic means for lowering the supporting member to place the gun infiring position, a gun on the supporting member, magnetic means for thinmeans for closing the circuit 0 said magnetic means when the supportingmember reaches the limit of its downward movement and means for closingthe circuit of the first mentioned magnetic means.

7. A device of the class described comprisinga support, a shieldconnected with the support having an opening therein, a

gun supporting member pivotally secured to this support, a gun on saidmember, spring means for normally holding the supporting member with thegun aimed at a solid part of the shield, magnetic means for moving thesupporting member to place the gun in register with the opening, circuitclosing means "for said magneticmeans, magnetic means for firing the gunand means "for completing means when the gun supporting member reachesthe limit of its downward position. In testimony whereof I afix mysignature.

LLIAM r. onavnluna.

the circuit to said magnetic-

